


Not the Only Ones Pretending

by Kalcifer



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Canonical Character Death, During Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 09:21:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20812757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalcifer/pseuds/Kalcifer
Summary: It sounds so nice, in theory. Mako's just running into an old friend while going out for fried chicken. But even though the Chime has broken up, two of them in the same place can still throw the simplest of missions into chaos.





	Not the Only Ones Pretending

**Author's Note:**

> Someone has definitely already written this fic before, but you can't end a scene with the intersection of KFC and murder without expecting me to follow up on that.
> 
> I still haven't listened to the last episode of Counter/weight, so I am fully prepared to look back at this fic and laugh at some random point I got wrong. I hope you can enjoy this in spite of that.

Mako’s really not sure why he’s this tired. Okay, yeah, he’s been working with Orth for five hours and now it’s one in the morning, but that’s not even that late. He used to do this all the time. Sure, maybe he’s a little older now, but technically he’s only… he’s not sure, actually. He’s probably like ten, though, and aren’t ten-year-olds supposed to be hyper all the time? This should be no problem.

Maybe he’s just tired because he barely got to eat his chicken. And even if not, getting more is an excuse to be moving, and he’s needed one of those for the last hour.

Satisfied with his logic, he steps out of the elevator, at which point his brain finally decides to process what he’s seeing. Specifically, Aria, holding a bloody sword and standing in front of the crumpled body of Paisley Moon.

His first reaction is just to call her name, hesitantly, as if she could be anyone else. He’d probably also call out to Paisley, but he wouldn’t be ready when Paisley didn’t respond and proved that he was dead.

Aria looks up at him, tears in her eyes. “Mako?” Well, at least she seems equally confused.

Wait, no, she’s the one who just murdered her ex-boyfriend in Orth’s lobby, she doesn’t get to be confused right now. Mako needs her to know what’s going on so she can explain it to him.

“Hey, good to see you, you mind telling me what you’re doing here?” He inches closer, trying not to look at the blood slowly oozing across the floor. His crush on Paisley had pretty much evaporated after the mess that was September, but he’d still liked the guy, and he really didn’t want to think about how one of his good friends had just murdered his other good friend.

“I…” Aria trails off and looks down at the body. “He was going to kill me. I had to. Besides, I… I don’t think that was Paisley anymore. Not really.”

_Well, yeah_, Mako thinks. That had been obvious when he vanished without a word. Cass had told them that recovering anything from what was left of his brain would have taken weeks of intensive care, and Paisley definitely hadn’t gotten that. Mako’s surprised even this much of him had been left.

Now isn’t the time to say all that, though. Not when Aria looks so lost, hovering between the newly criminal idol she’d been when they first met and the revolutionary she’d become.

“That sucks,” he says, trying to inject the statement with the appropriate amount of sympathy.

Aria gives a watery laugh. “Yeah.”

“… You wanna grab some chicken?” He waves his coupon enticingly. “Orth gave me this coupon for like 14% off, you don’t want to miss out on this offer.”

She looks up suddenly, eyes wide. “Oh, shit, Orth! I was supposed to talk to him about Oricon stuff. Do you think he –” She cuts herself off, as if saying the words out loud will make them true.

Mako winces. Right, he probably should have known that Orth didn’t have hours to sit around drawing maps with him. It was only Aria, though, so he didn’t feel too bad about stealing her time. Except for the part where she’d had to fight Paisley, but that probably would have happened anyway. If anything, he had done her a favor by making sure the fight was down here instead of in Orth’s office.

And Aria was still looking concerned, so he should probably do something other than imagine other ways the fight might have played out. “Orth’s fine,” he says. “I was just with him.” _While you were killing Paisley_, he only barely stops himself from adding.

“Good.” Aria’s shoulders sag in relief. “That’s good.”

Mako can’t quit while he’s ahead, apparently, because the next thing out of his mouth is, “We were making plans about Rigor, actually. You should totally join us. After we go get food, I mean.” Orth probably won’t mind. Having more of them working together can only be a good thing against an enemy like Rigor, and he’s probably missed Aria too, even if he won’t admit it.

“We can’t just leave him here, though.” Aria glances back down at Paisley. This time, her gaze doesn’t linger. “It wouldn’t be right.”

“That’s exactly the kind of thinking that got us here in the first place.” Shit. Mako had been doing so well on the self-control, too.

He’s not wrong, is the thing. If Aria had been willing to leave Paisley in the coffee shop, or on September as they escaped, none of this would have happened. They might even have had room to save someone for real. And maybe it’s not fair to blame her, not when they all fucked that mission up so badly, but she’s the one who talked an entire planet into sacrificing itself.

Mako doesn’t like going down these trains of thought, but he can’t seem to stop himself. He knows it was the only way they could escape. He knows Aria wasn’t really the one who made that call. But he’s tired and hungry and he’s gone five years without dealing with any of what they’d done on September, and now would be a terrible time to start.

Aria’s breathing is getting faster, shallow breaths that don’t seem to contain enough oxygen, and Mako hates that this is the first time they’ve seen each other in so long. He just wants to hang out with his friends without the specter of war and general trauma bringing everyone down.

He flashes a grin, though it’s not one of his best. “Besides,” he says, the transition hanging in the air awkwardly after so long a pause. “I’m sure Orth has people to deal with this sort of thing. I bet people die in his offices all the time.”

It’s definitely not his smoothest recovery. Aria is giving him a weird look, but her breathing is starting to even out, so he’ll take that as a win.

“Come on,” he says. “We need to get going if we want to avoid the line.”

“Right.” Aria looks out the window to the deserted streets. “We don’t want to hit the 1:36 rush.”

“Exactly.” Mako nudges her with his elbow. “Let’s go.”

She doesn’t stab him when he touches her, which is always a good sign. They make it to the restaurant without any more assassin attacks or panic attacks. The store isn’t any more inviting than it was six hours ago, but the whole debacle is almost worth it just for the way the cashier startles when Aria Joie orders a kids’ meal.

He does still make her carry all the food on the way back. She’s weirdly upbeat about agreeing. Like she’s relieved by it, like she thinks joking about the situation is a sign that it can’t be that bad. Like she’s forgotten everything about the way Mako works.

That’s another thing he shouldn’t really blame her for. It’s not like he’s been any better at staying in touch than she has, and he’s not the one in charge of Ibex’s dumb political movement.

He’ll still do it, of course, just like he’ll still hold a grudge against her for September. He’ll just feel shitty about it.


End file.
